


When a Punch Was As Good As a Kiss

by Zoya1416



Category: Rivers of London
Genre: But not with Peter, Fighting As Foreplay, M/M, Memories of Rough Sex, One-Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 04:44:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9965840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya1416/pseuds/Zoya1416
Summary: He had never been a gentle lover.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one-shot just rethinking the "Nightingale is this gentle wounded tragic romantic guy who wants to swoon over Peter" trope.

Thomas had never been a gentle lover. He hadn't had a lover in many years. He'd sometimes met men through Harold Postmartin—though not of the same inclination as he was, the Oxford historian had been able to introduce him to some willing dons. He enjoyed their company and had even had short romances with a few. But the ones he'd most desired had been the rough and tumble kind.

He was one hundred and thirteen years old and felt forty. It was an odd juxtaposition—when he'd been forty his type of love had been illegal. It hadn't stopped being illegal until 1967, when his desires had almost completely waned. This new youth, this recovery in body, had brought the old longings back. Except that it had never been just longing. Certainly he'd enjoyed kissing and fondling. When even just the surreptitious stroke of a finger on a hand was illegal, the frisson of any expressed lust was greater.

But now that he was capable, almost more than he wanted to have sex again, he wanted a good fight. Sex had almost always started with fighting comrades—boxing, punching, wrestling. They'd known where the rippling slap of flesh on flesh was taking them, and the combat was exciting foreplay. Sometimes it felt fine just to fall into another's arms, exhausted after a fight, opponents pulling each other off.

Sometimes, though, fighting was foreplay for aggressive sex, even vicious. With his sexual companions he'd bitten and clawed, raked his nails all the way down backs, put his hands around throats, buggered savagely, fucked mouths—and had it all, gloriously, done to him. The idea of tying and bondage, of one person being dominant while the other simply submitted, had never, ever appealed to him, in either role. He was happy to be on either side of the battle—being the stronger, the winner, was only a little bit better than having his arms held down, his body pressed down, completely conquered. He simply had never enjoyed gentleness. Only after they were both spent did he have moments of tenderness, kissing his competitor quietly until they fell asleep.

Therefore, all his history made his attraction to his own apprentice terribly, horribly, worse, beside having taken oath to be his master and teacher. It was worse to see this beautiful man day by day, a young man who smiled at him, teased him a little—only with words, not with any suggestiveness at all. He knew that Peter regarded him as very much too old for any sexual thoughts at all. When Peter mentioned clubbing at night, it was with something of an attitude that his generation had invented sex and that he was embarrassed to mention it before this posh, refined elderly gentleman. He thought that Peter suspected his dear David had been more than a friend—but Peter would never suspect that David and he routinely used to thrash each other before they bedded.

He thought that possibly Peter was attracted to him, regarded him as more than a master-the boy smiled in what seemed a fond way now and again, but how would he ever know? _He_ could never say anything. He didn't only want to kiss or touch. What he wanted to do was not talk at all, but punch him and start a fight, when both knew what would happen at the end. In the decades gone by, a man might sport a bloody or broken nose, a blackened eye, a cut, without it being much remarked on. Fighting was part of being a man, whether normal or invert. He couldn't help thinking that the world had lost something without this.

This was why, beside legitimate reasons, he'd initiated boxing practice. Thomas knew himself to be highly proficient at magic during any kind of combat or attack, and he was determined Peter should develop the same skills. This was _magic_ boxing practice, where the punches and jabs were interspersed with impello, and with the commands to Peter to keep his lux stable, or move it as he demanded. It was aggressive, but controlled. There was every need in the world for Peter to learn this from him. If he tried dirty tricks, it was because Peter needed to learn to protect himself. It was certainly not because he enjoyed it. Peter would be shocked to learn how much he enjoyed it.

It wasn't foreplay--it would never be foreplay, he could never lay a lustful finger on his apprentice. But it was physical, it was jarring body contact, and it made him feel more alive that he had in years. If his hands turned later to stroke his body, remembering the punches that made him so alive--if he imagined smashing Peter's head as often as he imagined kissing him—it was his very own solitary vice, no one else's to know or even guess. He had never, ever been a gentle lover.

He sizzled a small fireball under Peter's nose while smashing his ribs. Peter wasn't holding onto his shield. "Don't be distracted! Focus!"

When Peter then unexpectedly swept his feet out from beneath him, slamming him down on his back, it was a slice of heaven.

**Author's Note:**

> This came about when I listened to kd reading Sixthlight's "Without Restraint," for the fifteenth (thirtieth) time or so, and then thought about what Nightingale's POV might be. The sex in that fic is nothing like this, but it does have Peter and Nightingale getting turned on after boxing.


End file.
